Great Wind and a Gentle Whisper (1 Kings 19:9-18)

Elijah: Peaks and Valleys • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

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Alone on the mountain, Elijah hears from God in a "still, small voice." Feelings of discouragement can melt away with the knowledge God is not finished with us yet.

Notes

Transcript

Introduction

· Please turn with me to 1 Kings 19.

· If you could visit one place of great historical significance, where would it be? Maybe the gravesite of a great hero. Or a battlefield that turned the tide of a war. Maybe the place where a famous speech was given, or where a great movement began. I have many places I would like to visit, but I think one of them would be Wittenberg, Germany, where the Protestant Reformation began. Karl has been there twice!

· In our passage today, Elijah goes to a place of great historical significance. The prophet of God returns to the very place where another prophet, Moses, had once stood and met God.

· Elijah was exhausted. He was discouraged. He was war-weary from the spiritual battles he had fought and the continued rebellion of Israel. So God invites Elijah to go on a journey.

· Read 19:7-9a.

· Then God, our wonderful counselor, asks a question. One of the great skills of a good teacher and a good biblical counselor is the ability to ask good questions. God’s question is simple, but it opens up Elijah and lets him speak.

· Read 19:9b-11.

· God is about to do something wonderful and amazing.

· Background on Mount Sinai, what the people of Israel had experienced there. Elijah had seen none of those things. He had heard of them no doubt, and read them many times in the Torah, but he was not there when it happened.

· Three great forces of nature: great and strong wind (11), an earthquake (11), a fire (12). All with great destructive power. A wind batters, an earthquake breaks, a fire consumes. Can symbolize judgment. Certainly show God’s power.

· But in each of these, “the LORD was not in it” (11).

· These were great demonstrations of God’s power, but they caused only awe and dread pressing him back further into the cave. They were not a revelation of his glory and character, as God had done with Moses in this same place long ago. God is up to something else here.

God’s Ways Are Marvelous and Mysterious

· LIFE LESSON – God’s ways are marvelous and mysterious.

· Isaiah 55:8–9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

· Cf. Ex. 3; 19; 33-34. Many parallels. Now compare these with Moses’ experience – burning bush, the giving of the law, glory passing by. Moses was there with the LORD 40 days and 40 nights. He neither ate bread nor drank water (Ex. 34:28). Elijah went in the strength of that food 40 days and 40 nights (8). God placed Moses in a cleft of the rock (22). Elijah hid in a cave as God demonstrated his great power (9). God told Moses, you shall worship no other god …for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God (34:14). Elijah says “I have been very jealous [zealous, passionately devoted, protective] for the LORD (10). In the days of Moses, “Mount Sinai was wrapped in smoke because the Lord had descended on it in fire. The smoke of it went up like the smoke of a kiln, and the whole mountain trembled greatly. And as the sound of the trumpet grew louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him in thunder. The Lord came down on Mount Sinai, to the top of the mountain. And the Lord called Moses to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.” (Ex. 19:18-20). And here, with Elijah, there is a great wind, then an earthquake, and then fire. There are many parallels, but there is also distinction in how God handles Elijah. In each of these three, “the Lord was not in it.”

· God’s ways are both marvelous and mysterious.

· Be very careful to think you know what God is doing, or even to try and figure God out beyond what he has revealed in scripture. He is like a father, kind and knowable. But he is also a king fighting wars and ruling over affairs we know nothing of. He is both imminent and transcendent, both intimate and unfathomable.

· Now, a fourth phenomenon occurs, totally unlike the first three. The “sound of a low whisper” (12). KJV “a still, small voice.”

The Still, Small Voice

· What is this? What it is NOT: Medieval Catholic mysticism. Lectio divina or “divine [spiritual] reading of scripture. Luke Dysinger: “The art of lectio divina begins with cultivating the ability to listen deeply, to hear "with the ear of our hearts" as St. Benedict encourages us. When we read the Scriptures, we should allow ourselves to become women and men who listen for the still, small voice of God (1 K. 19:12, KJV): the faint murmuring sound that is God’s word for us, God’s voice touching our hearts. This gentle listening is an "atunement" to the presence of God in that special part of God’s creation that is the Scriptures.

· We see this even in pockets of the SBC. Just be cautious. God spoke to me, he led me, or an inner impression he gave. E.g. Blackaby, p. 87. “Does God really speak to his people in our day? Yes! Will he reveal to you where he is working when he wants to use you? Yes! The key to knowing God’s voice is not a formula. It is not a method you can follow. Knowing God’s voice comes from an intimate love relationship with God. That is why those who do not have the relationship (“do not belong to God”) do not hear what God is saying (John 8:47). You are going to have to watch to see how God uniquely communicates with you. You will not have any other crutch. You will have to depend on God alone. Your relationship to Him is of utmost importance.” But is this really how God speaks to us?

· Instead, Justin Peters: “If you want to hear God speak to you, there’s only one way I can guarantee you that you will hear God speak, read your Bible. If you want to hear God speak to you audibly, read it out loud.”

· What it IS: ESV the sound of a low whisper. NAS a sound of a gentle blowing. NKJV a still small voice. CSB there was a voice, a soft whisper. Rare expression. Heb lit. seems to be, “a voice, calm, soft.” Ps 107:29 “He made the storm be still, and the waves of the sea were hushed.”

· God was indeed acting differently, and seemed to be signaling it was time for Elijah to emerge and receive his remaining instructions.

· The question is repeated. Spiritual discouragement probably mixed with some self-pity.

· Hazael, Jehu, Elijah – these three men, would be used by God to finish what Elijah had started, judging Israel for her apostasy, and cleaning out the remaining pockets of Baal worship in the land.

We are Motivated By Mission

· LIFE LESSON: We are motivated by mission. As we emerge out of our “caves” after COVID, in spite of the moral decay around us, let us be reminded of our mission as well.

· As I studied this passage and considered what it means for us today, I could not but help but think of Matt. 28 where Jesus declares his authority, and gives us the Great Commission.

· The remnant. God will glorify his name among the nations, and he has a chosen remnant he will still save. Paul uses this passage over in Romans 11:1–5 I ask, then, has God rejected his people? By no means! For I myself am an Israelite, a descendant of Abraham, a member of the tribe of Benjamin. God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. Do you not know what the Scripture says of Elijah, how he appeals to God against Israel? “Lord, they have killed your prophets, they have demolished your altars, and I alone am left, and they seek my life.” But what is God’s reply to him? “I have kept for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal.” So too at the present time there is a remnant, chosen by grace.

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